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Akira Amari, Japan's minister in charge of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, said Tuesday (Aug. 11) that the United States failed to show persistence to conclude the deal at the last ministerial meeting in Hawaii and expressed fear that the talks could drift without any clear timeframe for wrapping up.

[Reposted from Inside US Trade | August 12. 2015]

“Every TPP country wondered why the U.S. was quick to give up the conclusion without its usual relentless persistence,” Amari wrote in a blog post published on his official Diet website, according to an informal translation.

He noted that most TPP countries were aiming to have the Maui ministerial meeting be the final one and that Canada had expressed a willingness to stay another day to try to reach a deal.

But Amari said the U.S. must have concluded it was impossible to resolve in Maui the outstanding issues of the length of data exclusivity for biologic drugs and the “extravagant” demands by some countries on dairy market access, a possible reference to New Zealand.

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